Waiting For Hawke
by PragmaticHominid
Summary: Anders comes to Skyhold in search of Hawke, and the Inquisitor offers to keep him safely hidden until Hawke returns from business elsewhere. But the cell the former Saarebas gives him reminds Anders too much of his time in the Circle's prison, even if the cell door at Skyhold is never locked. Cole senses his fear and loneliness and tries to help.
1. Chapter 1

**I.**

Anders lowered his hood to look around the cell.

That it was a cell was an undeniable, and that the narrow space was well-appointed and the gray stone walls clean and dry did not change this essential fact, nor did the soft bed or the neat bookcase or the Inquisitor's promise that the door would not be locked. The thought of hearing that door click shut behind him tightened his chest and made his breath come short.

They were far beneath Skyhold, below the Inquisitor's own quarters. "You will be safe here," Anders heard the Inquisitor say.

He turned and craned his head back on his neck to look up at the Qunari. For all his height, the Inquisitor wasn't nearly as heavily built as the Qunari that Anders had seen in Kirkwall. Anders was intimately familiar with hunger, and it was easy for him to recognize himself in the other mage's rangy frame and gaunt face. The scars where stitches had once been set in the Inquisitor's lips were harder to understand. Anders tried not to stare.

Anders knew the risk that the Inquisitor was taking in hiding him here, and he did not feel that it would be right to complain, but the Qunari seemed to sense his unease at being left in this cell.

"Hawke will be back soon," he promised.

**II.**

The nightmare was one which Anders had experienced many times before. In the dream everything happened exactly as it did on that last day in Kirkwall.

Among all the chaos and burning a child was sitting in the street. There was blood in his hair and he was screaming, and even over the all the shouting and the roaring of the flames Anders could hear him.

He started toward the boy and Hawke moved with him as though one, but Hawke wasn't turning to the the child - perhaps had not even seen him. Hawke raised their staff, the blood from where they had cut themself dripping down the shaft. An instant later the Templars were upon them all, a dozen of them at least, ringing in himself and Hawke and Fenris and Merrill.

By the time they had fought their way free the boy was gone. In the dream, as in real life, Anders was certain that he had been killed, and the sense of guilt that gripped him was sickening. It pulled him up from sleep.

Anders staggered up from the bed, fighting the need to retch, and made it to the bucket just in time. He was drenched in a clammy sweat, and in the chill of the cell his entire body began to shiver. He'd left the oil lamp burning - he could not have withstood waking alone in the dark - but the wick had burned low and the light it cast was flickering and sickly.

The unlocked door was a monstrous temptation, but he knew that if he went through it he would not be able to stop until he was above ground, and if he was discovered there it might well mean his death, so he pushed himself along the floor of the cell until his back came up against the wall, as far from the exit as he could get, and drew his legs up to his chest.

The lamp's light dimmed and went out, and in the new darkness a cool hand pressed against his forehead.

For a moment he thought it must be the Inquisitor, woken by the noise he'd made, but the hand was far too small for that. The touch did not frighten Anders. After a while his other fears seemed to recede, and the shaking stopped.

Somehow he found his way back into the bed. He slept well, and in his dreams the boy was safe. He grew to be a mage, and Anders watched him grow and saw his pride when his magic first manifested, saw the way he grew strong and confident in his abilities. In the dream the boy was free, and he had a family that loved him and he loved them and he loved himself, and all was well.

**III.**

Anders awoke to the sound of the Inquisitor rapping his knuckles softly on the bars of the cell. The details of the dream were still fresh in his mind, strangely vivid. The dream stayed with him throughout the day, so despite the loneliness and claustrophobia he would occasionally find himself smiling at the thought.

He knew mages who had visions, and though he never had before the strange quality of the dream made him wonder if he had been shown a true thing. It gave him a speck of hope.

He had no recollection of Cole visiting him in the cell.


	2. Chapter 2

**I.**

The Inquisitor nudged the heavy cell door open with his shoulder, stepped into the room and stooped to set a breakfast tray on the table.

Said table was built small to take up as little of the cell's limited space as possible, and had only one chair, which the Inquisitor waved Anders toward. He himself perched on the edge of the bed. The cell was already miserably claustrophobic, and Anders might have expected it to feel unbearably crowded with the Qunari inside it as well, but he had a way of drawing his own limbs close and folding in on himself that made him seem smaller than he actually was. He took up surprisingly little space.

The Inquisitor nodded his head at the tray, which was nearly overflowing with food. "This is meant for you."

Anders took up a plate and heaped it high with toasted bread and eggs and sausage, but as he reached for the fork he began to feel anxious. He wondered if this was the Qunari's breakfast, if he'd brought it to Anders rather than asking for extra to avoid raising suspicions.

"Have you eaten?" Anders asked. He'd never been able to eat in the presence of someone else who was hungry - in the past he'd split already short rations many times for just this reason - and the Inquisitor looked like he'd been hungry for a long time. Anders had only gotten a brief glimpse of the goings on at Skyhold while the Qunari was shepherding him quickly through the halls and down to this dim hiding place, but it seemed bizarre to Anders that the leader of such an impressive organization might be going without. He wondered if the Qunari was ill.

The Inquisitor took longer to consider the question than Anders might have expected. "I don't believe I have," he said. Anders nudged the tray toward him and the Qunari leaned forward to put a slice of toast and some eggs on a saucer.

"I realized that I don't know what I should call you," Anders said. "So far I've only overheard a few people call you by your title, or else…"

"The Qunari, yes. They are incorrect. I am Tal-Vashoth."

"I was going to say 'the mage,'" Anders lied, trying to make his voice sound light and humorous - that had used to be easier, even when he didn't really feel it.

"I understand Qunari don't have names," Anders said. He felt oddly bashful volunteering this knowledge, as though he was admitting to being in possession of a bit of personal information that he ought not have rightfully known. "Do Tal-Vashoth…?"

The Inquisitor had hunched his shoulders so he was on Anders' level as they spoke. Now he straightened slightly. "I prefer to be called Mouse."

Anders was so surprised by the laughter that bubbled up in his throat that he nearly choked on it. "Mouse?"

"It's a little joke," he answered. Then he paused, clearly for dramatic effect, and added seriously, "Very little."

Anders snorted and returned to his plate. He couldn't remember the last time he'd had a hot meal. "Are you going to eat?" he asked.

Mouse seemed to have forgotten about the plate on his knee. He nibbled at the toast in response to the prompting. "I've adapted very well to being Tal-Vashoth," Mouse explained, and there was something in his tone that told Anders that he was repeating something that someone else had told him. "But I can't seem to remember to eat without my Arvaarad to keep the schedule.

"I didn't want to live at first - to become Tal-Vashoth. When my Arvaarad was killed, I wished to follow the demands of the Qun, but the Templars didn't allow -"

"Templars?"

"The Red Templars. They took me captive, and then dampened my magic. They had some purpose for me - I think it had to do with the red lyrium - but I was rescued by the Tal-Vashoth before it came to that. There were other former Saarebas among them, and those who had been Arvaarads as well. They helped me to stay alive - gave me something new to live for - but it was very hard. For a long time I was afraid that I might become an abomination.

"But I've done well," he said again. "It's only that I can't seem to remember to eat without my Arvaarad to keep the schedule."

Anders was silent. His own appetite had disappeared at the mention of abominations.

**II.**

When Mouse came back the next time it was with a tin of cookies as well as dinner. He handed the container to Anders.

He looked down into the tin. The treats reminded him of a story that Tabris had told him. about a displaced Sten who had been deeply impressed by cookies. "You're giving me all of these?"

Mouse brushed his hesitation away with a wave of his hand. "I've got boxes and boxes of sweets and baked goods where those came from." The Inquisitor's voice turned conspiratorial. "There's a Tevinter mage here. He's entirely convinced that I've lived a deprived life. He means to personally provide a demonstration of every good thing that I missed out on while living under the 'barbarous Qun.' He has some new treat sent nearly everyday."

"You're gaming him," Anders said.

The Inquisitor had a particular way of laughing. The sound was a soft chuffing, and his face hardly moved at all, but pleasure danced in his grey eyes. "It's a pretext," he explained. "It makes him happy to do nice things for me, but he can't say that outright. Do you see? I haven't the heart to tell him that I've been a Tal-Vashoth in a Ferelden for nearly two years now, and the novelty of cookies has more or less worn off.

"It's hard to say, you know - he dances around it, and I'm not entirely used to how things are done here - but I think that we might be dating."

Anders felt a tinge of jealousy at this, but he fought it down.

A hazy voice spoke from outside of the cell. "Lonely, longing, lost. Why her instead of me? Too late though, take less if that's what Hawke has to give, but it isn't entirely lacking - it's love and that's lovely and the loss doesn't bite except late in the night when there's no one else, lost in looping thoughts but it comes clear like light through a window: Hawke will understand. Even if the other Mages don't want me Hawke will, and all I have to do is wait -"

Mouse's expression had become pained during this monologue. "Cole," he said flatly, "you're speaking out of turn."

The young man was slight and pallid and Anders couldn't see his eyes from under the brim of his oversized hat. He had seemed to come from nowhere, had made no noise coming down the stairs. For a moment Anders couldn't understand how this stranger could know so much about him, and he was frightened. But then the pieces snapped into place, and he realized what he was looking at. Justice stirred with curiosity and recognition.

For an instant Cole tilted his head upwards and Anders caught a glimpse of cornflower blue eyes, half hidden by matted straw-colored hair. He broke eye contact an instant later. "There's a spirit tangled up inside of you. Can it come out?"

"Spirit?" Mouse repeated slowly, looking at Anders.

"Anxious," Cole said. "Intrusion is absolutely always a possibility, even after all this time. Am I anchored without my Arvaarad? Will I always be myself, and who am I now after all of this?"

"Cole," Mouse said again. His voice was firm but Anders could see his discomfort.

"Abandoned," Cole said. It seemed to Anders that the young man had no control over his own words. "If they find the apostate it will annule everything I've built here. All for nothing, and I'll have to start over again a third time. Maybe I shouldn't hide him here but Hawke will want to see him, and he's hungry, hunted, harrowed…. a hero? Hesitation at that word. It's hard to say for sure - what do I know about Circles and Chantries? But I'd like to understand what happened."

Mouse stood, clearly agitated. "You aren't meant to be here," he told Cole.

Cole's voice was wounded. "I was trying to help," he said, and turned and disappeared up the stairs, and Anders forgot him.

**III. **

Anders blinked slowly, disoriented. The feeling was all too familiar.

"He's harmless," Mouse was saying, but Anders wasn't sure who he was talking about.

There had been a boy, he thought, or maybe a young man. He had said something about spirits and… Anders wondered if Justice had done something. He couldn't remember, and the spirit was silent on the matter, seemingly preoccupied.

But the Inquisitor was looking at him strangely, It made Anders nervous and angry. There was something inside him that was always prepared for violent rejection. Long experience had taught him to strike first. "I'm not," he told Mouse.


End file.
